The sixth and fifth centuries BCE were a time of constant re-identifications within Judean communities, both in exile and in the land; it was a time when Babylonian exilic ideologies captured a central position in Judean (Jewish) history and literature at the expense of silencing the voices of any other Judean communities.
Although seldom studied by biblical scholars as a discrete phenomenon, ritual violence is mentioned frequently in biblical texts, and includes ritual actions such as disfigurement of corpses, destruction or scattering of bones removed from a tomb, stoning and other forms of public execution, cursing, forced depilation, the legally-sanctioned imposition of physical defects on living persons, coerced potion-drinking, sacrificial burning of animals and humans, forced stripping and exposure of the genitalia, and mass eradication of populations.
While many ancient Jewish and Christian leaders voiced opposition to Greek and Roman theater, this volume demonstrates that by the time the public performance of classical drama ceased at the end of antiquity the ideals of Jews and Christians had already been shaped by it in profound and lasting ways.
Offering a reading of the intermarriage debate and expulsion of the foreign women in Ezra 9-10, this book engages with the production and performance of masculinities in this biblical text, shifting the focus away from the 'foreign women' to the men who are the primary actors in this work.
This book explores the early Jewish understanding of divine knowledge as divine presence, which is embodied in major biblical exemplars, such as Adam, Enoch, Jacob, and Moses.
This Oxford Handbook is a serious resource for the study of the literature of the Writings (Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, Daniel) of the Hebrew Bible, including its context and its scriptural/canonical shape and reception.
An investigation into the real historical figure of King David and the real location of the Temple of Solomon *; Identifies King David as Pharaoh Tuthmosis III of the 18th Dynasty and David's son Solomon as Pharaoh Amenhotep, Tuthmosis's successor *; Shows how the Temple of Solomon described in the Bible corresponds with the Mortuary Temple of Luxor in Egypt *; Explains how David was not a descendant of Isaac but his father and how biblical narrators changed the original story of Abraham and Isaac to hide his Egyptian identity During the last two centuries, thousands of ancient documents from different sites in the Middle East have been uncovered.
WINNER OF THE 2019 DUFF COOPER PRIZETHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'With emotional and psychological insight, Barton unlocks this sleeping giant of our culture.
Examines the dilemma of whether ancient Near Eastern images while providing unique aspects of the world-views of the cultures from which the Bible arose can be interpreted in a way that traceably relates them to the biblical text.
Ambra Suriano analyses the narrator's techniques, exploring the influence of the readers' understanding and playing with their interpretative freedom in recounting particular episodes in the Book of Genesis.
Opening Israel's Scriptures is a collection of thirty-six essays on the Hebrew Bible, from Genesis to Chronicles, which gives powerful insight into the complexity and inexhaustibility of the Hebrew Scriptures as a theological resource.
Becoming a Mensch is a "e;user's guide"e; to becoming a better person, taking readers through a process of personal growth by means of modern-day vignettes that draw upon the Talmud's ancient wisdom.
One of the cornerstones of the religious Jewish experience in all its variations is Torah study, and this learning is considered a central criterion for leadership.
Though considered one of the most important informants about Judaism in the first century CE, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus's testimony is often overlooked or downplayed.
By 1791, the French Revolution had spread to Haiti, where slaves and free blacks alike had begun demanding civil rights guaranteed in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man.
First English translation of Victor Hugo's writings on his experiments in spiritualism *; Reveals Hugo's conversations with renowned discarnate entities such as Shakespeare, Plato, Galileo, and Jesus *; Examines his contacts with aliens from the planets Mercury and Jupiter and the revelation that our entire universe is a quantum hologram *; Discusses Hugo's possible role as a grand master of the Priory of Sion During Victor Hugo's exile on the Isle of Jersey, where he and his family and friends escaped the reign of Napolon III, he conducted ';table-tapping' sances, transcribing hundreds of channeled conversations with entities from the beyond.
From Tiberias With Love is a journey to rediscovering the magic and mystery, the intimacy and depth of a lost moment in the history of a remarkably relevant conscious community in the Galilee that still has much to teach us.
Designed with the beginning student in mind, this volume introduces the reader to the books that did not make it into the Bible or the Apocrypha but that remained popular among Jews and early Christians for centuries.
How could the Apostle Paul maintain in his first letter to the Christians in Corinth that all their ancestors were baptized into Moses at the Red Sea / exodus event (10:2), and how could he tolerate some of them having themselves baptized again on behalf of the dead (15:29)?
Sensible Ecstasy investigates the attraction to excessive forms of mysticism among twentieth-century French intellectuals and demonstrates the work that the figure of the mystic does for these thinkers.
Rich in family drama, passion, and human affinity, critically acclaimed author Frederick Buechner's contemporary retelling of this captivating and timeless biblical saga revitalizes the ancient story of Jacob, delighted our senses and modern sensibilities and gracing us with his exceptional eloquence and wit.
Sufism, the name given to Islamic mysticism, has been the subject of many studies, but the orders through which the organizational aspect of the Sufi spirit was expressed has been neglected.
